It’s no secret that this has been a rough season for the Ohio State Buckeyes men’s basketball team and head coach Chris Holtmann. But even despite the disappointing season that has them next-to-last in the Big Ten at the end of the season, it sounds like he’ll be back in Columbus next year.
Following Ohio State’s win over Illinois on Sunday, Chris Holtmann was asked if he will remain at Ohio State next season with speculation that he might be interested in the head coaching vacancies at Ole Miss or Notre Dame given the struggles at Ohio State. And he was pretty clear about his plans.
“Yes, absolutely,” Holtmann said according to Lettermen Row. “I love it here. I love it here, and Gene [Smith] and I have been very open about our plan in terms of moving forward and what our plan was after last year with somewhat of a rebuild roster — what that was going to look like, how young we were going to be, our commitment to playing young guys, to backing that up with another young class.
“It’s a little bit hard to do sometimes when you’re going into Year Six, and you’re saying, ‘OK, hey, we’re gonna philosophically look at how we want to build this thing to give us maybe our greatest potential as a program.’ But I think we have played our young guys, we have another good class coming, and there is some real excitement in that amidst the tremendous disappointment with how some things have gone.”
The college basketball world had plenty to say about the announcement.
They win one game and we're all excited for the future now… https://t.co/B4vty28W69
— Justin Groshon 🌰 (@Justin4_OSU) February 26, 2023
If I repeatedly kept taking Ls and someone kept depositing money then I’d love it too https://t.co/CQs9AMJ6Kz
— Steve Waniewski (@SteveWaniewski) February 26, 2023
Where else was he going to go? https://t.co/KLcE1N6s0y
— B1G_Ryan (@B1G_Ryan) February 26, 2023
Holtmann and Gene Smith really trying to say this year was part of the plan https://t.co/0ssnhGkha4 pic.twitter.com/t8w3Upybhw
— Ben Allison (@Ben_A7) February 26, 2023
https://twitter.com/Zachary32389449/status/1629937323495378947?s=20
Ohio State is set to miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Holtmann’s tenure this year but just signed the No. 8 freshman recruiting class and has the nation’s No. 6 recruiting class coming next year.
